“It’s Cupples and Crandall,” whispered Bert joyously. At that moment the meaning of the pause was explained. Ben and Pierce found themselves attacked from a new quarter, while from the platform came a pitiless shower of snowballs. Discretion proved the better part of valor. Ben and Pierce scampered away and, with a shout, Cupples and Crandall rushed up the stairs and joined the invaders at the top.
“Did they get you?” asked Lanny. “The whole crowd went down to catch you.”
“No, we saw them first,” panted Crandall with a grin, “and ran like the dickens. They’re after us, though. Come on, Harold, let’s go down again before they catch us.”
“If you do that they’ll get you sure,” said Bert. “Stay up here with us and we’ll stand them off. We can do it easily. There are some of them now.”
Four figures came out of the darkness and were joined, at a respectful distance from the platform by Ben and Pierce.
“They’ll try to rush us,” muttered Bert. “Got plenty of snowballs, fellows?”
“What do you say, Harold?” asked Crandall.
“Oh, we’ll stay and help the kids,” answered Cupples, beginning to make snowballs as fast as he could. “Pull the toboggan up, Cran, and put it across the top of the slide there. We can get behind it if we need to. Say, fellows, there isn’t much snow up here. First thing we know we’ll be out of ammunition.”
“Kid, you gather all the snow you can find,” directed Bert, “and pile it back of the toboggan.”
“I want to fight,” demurred Kid.